1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic analyzing apparatus having a function to pipette samples, and especially to an analyzing apparatus suitable for dealing with various and many sample containers.
2. Description of Related Art
In an analyzing system for pipetting biological samples such as blood, urine, etc., contained in sample containers, and analyzing substances included in the samples, a remarkable tendency to decrease an amount of a pipetted sample to a very small quantity has been seen, mainly in order to reduce the pain of a patient from which samples are collected, and the consumption amount of reagent. Moreover, the scope of items to be analyzed has been enlarged, and highly increasing the sensitivity to analyze biological components of a very low concentration has been also required. Consequently, various types of sample pipetting devices which can more correctly pipette a very small quantity of sample (less than microliters) to reduce contamination between samples, have been recently adopted.
Furthermore, in a conventional analyzing apparatus as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,986 (JP-A-27745/1994), the same two analyzing units are serially arranged along a sample container conveying line, and a sample is pipetted from a sample container by a pipetter provided at each analyzing unit. The pipetted sample is discharged into a reaction container, and analyzed by each analyzing unit.
Generally, inabiological inspection, different kinds of samples such as blood serum, urine, etc., have been collected, specified, and analyzed by using different analyzing apparatuses. Therefore, a plurality of analyzing apparatuses have been needed, corresponding to different kinds of biological samples.
In collecting different kinds of samples, or samples in different diagnosis sections in hospitals, various types of sample containers are usually used. Furthermore, various kinds of sample pipetting devices are used, corresponding to the processing ability of each analyzing apparatus, and also to kinds of analyzing methods such as a method using chemical reactions, a method using immnunological reactions and so forth.